Primary production represents the basis of the marine food chain, and is therefore of great importance to the ocean’s ecosystem. Estimating how much material is produced is not easy since phytoplankton not only live in the uppermost water layers, but also down to a depth of over a hundred metres.
We have developed a software package called SubMAPP, which is free to use. The package can be used to calculate depth profiles of various parameters based on surface observations, and to visualize the profiles from the sea surface to the seafloor. The data used in the program comes from satellites, from atmospheric models, and from direct measurements in the ocean. The software uses machine learning and is programmed in Python. The underwater profiles are also useful for further use in ocean models.
